Sift for success: How to manage high volumes and engage candidates

Sifting high volumes of candidates online is one of the biggest and most complex talent acquisition challenges HR professionals face today. Not only do employers need to identify the best talent in an overwhelmingly large applicant pool, they also need to have the edge on their competitors when it comes to attracting, engaging and retaining candidates.

22nd July 2016

Laura.Parrack

Preselection: The value of candidate experience

As employers look to compete harder for the top candidates, the emphasis on candidate experience in preselection has been growing. This increasing focus has been further catalysed by the changing demands of applicants. These individuals look for an employer to ‘sell themselves’ as much as historically the candidate has been expected to do to their prospective employer.

Consequences of a bad candidate experience

Among HR professionals, there’s more consensus than ever that delivering a negative candidate experience will have unwanted consequences for the business. Not only can it deter the best talent from potentially accepting a job offer, it could also tarnish the organisation’s brand image and reputation. If we look at high volume sifting practices, for instance, it’s easy to see that the stakes are high. With possibly hundreds of thousands of people going through an online preselection process, enormous brand damage could be done if the process is not designed with candidates in mind.

The sifting wish list

At Cubiks, we regularly speak to leading employers looking to enhance their sifting practices as a means to tackling the fight for talent. Overall, the HR professionals we interact with have three key aims for their high volume preselection processes:

Increase the efficiency of the hiring process to reduce time-to-hire and cost of volume recruitment.

Improve prediction of future job performance through assessments that identify the best talent.

Attract, engage and retain the candidates best suited to the organisation or a specific role in this early stage of the recruitment process.

Sift for success: Preselection tips from our experts

Our team works with the world’s biggest businesses every day to optimise their preselection processes and help their employer brands shine. Here are a few tips from our experts on the essential ingredients for a strong sifting approach.

1. Use tools that measure multiple predictors of performance. Combining assessment tools equips you to increase prediction while also reducing the number of assessment stages, thus speeding up the hiring process and reducing costs. For example, our Cubiks Hire sifting solution can combine an assessment of working style with ability tests and a situational judgement test to measure fit with a role, ability and judgement in one seamless experience. It is a configurable off-the-shelf solution, which means it is easily and quickly tailored to your organisation’s requirements.

2. Treat your candidates as customers to ensure a positive experience. It’s important to think about how you are communicating with your candidates during early stage sifting. Are you maintaining a personal touch? You could, for example, set up automatically generated candidate feedback reports, so that candidates feel valued – and learn about their strengths and development needs in relation to their application.

3. Make sure your assessments showcase your brand.It is also essential to think about how you communicate your brand throughout the preselection process. For example, you could apply your branding to assessments and add in video clips of existing job holders. It’s good to include information about your organisation, the role and your culture to enhance candidate experience and show off who you are as an employer. At the same time this will enable you to offer a realistic job preview and self-selection tool for candidates.

To hear more about how we help you attract, engage and match the right talent, please get in touch via the contact form below.